Opposition to the First World War in Wales was not confined to a relatively small number of conscientious objectors.

Contrary to the conventional view that virtually everyone signed up to a jingoistic version of patriotism, there was unrest in the coalfield over low pay.

Historian David Egan tells the final programme in the Doves and Hawks BBC Radio Wales series: “The First World War period in Wales was one of political change and political volatility.

Certainly the response to the War was initially about strong, pro-War sentiments. There were some anti-War sentiments that were expressed.

In August 1914 Keir Hardie certainly raised his voice, as others did. But I think when you look at the First World War as a whole, I would characterise it as a period when there was a pro-War faction, a growing anti-War faction as the reality of the Western Front kicked in, and increasingly there was a class war aspect.”

Egan said one was “a kind of nascent Marxist tradition that was very small, but became associated with the British Socialist Party in particular.

“But of course there was another remarkable tradition associated with Tonypandy (where riots had broken out in 1910 in response to a lockout by mine owners), the Miners’ Next Step (a radical manifesto written by a group of miners’ leaders), the Unofficial Reform Committee, which was industrial unionist and syndicalist. It was a very diverse kind of political tradition.”

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One influential anti-war figure was miner WF Hay. Historian Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, says of him: “He was one of the co-authors of the syndicalist manifesto of 1912, The Miners’ Next Step, a manifesto for reorganising not just the mining industry but the whole of society through a form of revolutionary trade unionism, followed by workers’ control of industry.

Hay was already influenced by Marxist ideas before the outbreak of the War, therefore.

Soon after the outbreak, as the editor of a paper that didn’t survive the War, The South Wales Worker, he produced a pamphlet, War and the Welsh Miner, basically saying the War offered nothing for working class people.

It wasn’t a War being fought for any genuinely just cause. It was a case of the ‘robber barons’ – the different Empires – falling out. Workers shouldn’t fight for their own capitalist class against the workers of other countries. They should all join together and bring down their governments and overthrow their ruling classes.

He begins the pamphlet, in fact, by arguing for a general strike in Britain and Germany, to bring down the government and bring down the system, and put an end to war. Workers should run industry and workers should run society.”

Presenter Aled Eirug says: “In the summer of 1915 tension between the South Wales miners and coal owners over pay came to a head. The government’s reaction was to include the coalfield under the provisions of the Munitions of War Act. Striking would be a criminal offence. This was a serious misjudgment on the part of the government. 200,000 South Wales miners defied the ban.”

Griffiths said: “There had been years of negotiations with the coal owners in order to try and improve wages at a time when prices were rocketing, profits were rocketing and the miners of South Wales thought that they should have a pay rise to compensate them to some extent, and to sort out what was a very arcane and antiquated wages structure in the industry.

“Eventually no agreement could be reached, despite the intervention of the government and the South Wales miners went on strike in the middle of July 1915 – and of course that created a sensation, because so much of the Royal Navy depended on Welsh coal, and the war effort generally. The munitions industry depended on the coalfields across Britain, of which the South Wales coalfield was one of the biggest.”

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While most of those who voted for strike action did so mainly to increase their pay, argues Griffiths, some of the speeches associated with the strike had a distinctly anti-war tone.

Lloyd George, at the time the Minister for Munitions, travelled to Cardiff and ensured the strike was settled on the miners’ terms. Egan tells the programme: “One historian has portrayed that as a patriotic strike in the sense that it was the coal owners who were the unpatriotic villains. It was easy for them to become villains within the context of South Wales at the time because they were taking opportunities in the war to undercut their workers and not pay them higher wages at a time of price inflation.

“But it certainly was an extremely brave decision. It was brave to be on the Western Front. It was also brave to say at this particular point in time, when the country could be seen to be in danger, that we’re going to stand up for our rights. That was a brave decision: at the forefront was a sense of injustice, but I think there was also an element among the leadership that was anti-war and wanted to wage class war and saw an opportunity.”